Music

Most of my work is concentrated on the music of the traditional Irish harp with metal wire strings. I started this work in earnest in the late 1990s I think. That’s what most of the rest of this website is all about, and you can read as much as you like here about my harp research and playing. You can hear my harp music on my Youtube channel or on my CDs.

But there are other musics I am interested in as well.


The longest-running and most important music for me is the bells.

Myself (in the stripy shirt) on the treble, and my mother (in the blue top and sparkly scarf) on the 5th, ringing with the IACR at Drumbo, County Down.

I was taught English change-ringing by my mother when I was a young boy, in Fawley, Hampshire. In the early 1990s I rang regularly with the Oxford University Society at Holywell, SMV, Mary Mag and New. After a break from ringing I returned to live in Oxford, and I rang at Iffley village, and with the Oxford Diocesan Guild. After I moved to Scotland I rang at the University tower in St Andrews, and did a lot of teaching there as well; I was elected vice-captain of the St Andrews band. Now I am living in Northern Ireland I have been ringing with the Irish Association of Change Ringers. I have been elected Northern District Ringing Master, and I am a member of the band at Lurgan.


I am also interested in acoustics, psycho-acoustics, tuning, ethnomusicology, organology, the evolutionary basis of hearing and vocalisation, etc.

A while back I did some abstract electronic composition. I have no idea if it is any good or not.